My midlife crisis: Trans Ams, Van Halen, and chimpanzees

I’m a 41-year-old male with ever-deepening thoughts about my own mortality. I also have questions about my place in the world, in my job, in my family. In addition, I have a near-pathological desire to acquire a 1978 Firebird Trans Am Special Edition (black).

To further complicate matters, I just found out adult chimpanzees suffer from midlife crises, which was just about enough to send me running to the local chapter of Hair Club for Men, and I’m not even bald.

I mean, what? Chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary cousin (but still, you know, a freakin’ monkey) get hit with a midlife crisis? What happens to them? Do they find a new, bigger tree to live in? Spend their days wondering what the point is of the whole using-sticks-to-catch-ants thing? Trade in their mate for a younger, pinker-butted model?

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If chimps are suffering from this malaise, how am I supposed to sidestep it? This is knowledge I wish I didn’t have.

And it is knowledge, by the way. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, captive chimps suffered a drop in well-being during their middle years, with their happiness climbing back up as they got older. The study was done using questionnaires filled out by the caretakers of the animals. (No study was done on the well-being of caretakers who are asked to divine the mood of a non-verbal non-human. Anyway …)

Anyway, it seems as if the midlife crisis is not just some pseudo-psychological term dreamed up in the 1960s. It may, in fact, be based in evolutionary biology. Which means there may be no escaping it. We may be predisposed to wondering what it all means, predisposed to fretting about the rest of our lives, predisposed to clicking “buy it now” on that $12,000 Trans Am with 62,000 miles and … man alive! The babes are going to dig me in that ride. So what if I’m already married with two small children; I’m not dead yet, ya know? I’ll be cruisin’ down the boulevard, T-tops down, Van Halen II blasting and …

( … and breathe … and breathe … and breathe … it’s OK Jeff, just settle down, no one knows of the tempest swirling around inside your head. Just relax. Take it down a notch there, ol’ buddy … get back to the chimpanzee column … focus … we good? OK. Let’s finish this up.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty darned clear-headed about this midlife crisis thing. I can handle it.

After all, the more I think about it, if I’m going to have a midlife crisis, I’m now much happier knowing it’s potentially biologically-based and not just some selfish move on my part. I mean, you can’t fight biology, right? That’s going to be my argument, anyway. Seems rock solid.

ME: Hello my lovely, adoring wife. I’d like you to meet Caandeeiye.

WIFE: Candy?

ME: No. It’s a front vowel thing on the “a,” little double shot on the “e” sound later, like “eeeEEE” … no matter. Anyway, she’s my midlife crisis. Classic, right? Stripper, the whole thing. Talk about your biology, huh? So uh … see you in a few weeks when I come groveling back to you, OK?

And … scene, right? I mean, some of the details in that little back-and-forth might be different, but the jist of it would remain. Can’t fight the biological imperatives. My wife would understand. I’m sure.

Before I finish up here — and not even sure why I feel compelled to mention this — but chimpanzees are known to be highly aggressive and will even kill fellow chimps. An emotional bunch, these apes. They probably don’t understand biological imperatives very well. So glad us humans are a rung up the ladder there, eh?

Bring on the midlife crisis. I can handle it. Or not. I’m torn. I wonder if this is part of it. I’m undecided. I mean, I do want that Trans Am, but this whole Caandeeiye thing feels forced. Who names their kid that? Maybe it’s a stage name. I’m going to have to investigate further.